What A Wonderful Daughter

What an amazing gesture this piecer has created as a Christmas gift for her Mother…

How else could you possibly head this blog? Here we are starting into December, with Christmas and other touching holidays on the horizon for many other religions of the world. This blog is about a quilt a loving daughter is going to present to her Mother on Christmas morning. I find myself connecting to this story so very much. You see, a big impetus for me owning a longarm is due, in large measure, to my own dear Mother, and a quilt I wanted to make and longarm for her.

This quilt started with a visit and some discussion about light custom quilting, as this quilt really called for some unique quilting–all hand-driven. We sat and chatted and doodled and a gameplan was devised. This piecer brought some wonderful and thick Pellon cotton batting and we began the loading process. For those of you who have never seen or don’t know how it goes, let me share a few pictures with you.

Here is the backing, batting and top all loaded. The feathers that are to go around the border have their spine marked and the pink tape measure you see on the left is for making sure the quilt tracks straight as it advances. I am nearly ready to baste this quilt down, but first, there is one more step.

Here I am making sure the top border is square with everything else. It’s best to start as square as possible. If things aren’t square to begin with, they will never quilt square. Things are looking very good! This piecer did such a beautiful job at getting things square, neat and trimmed. I love seeing quilts come to me this nice… it bodes well for a nice quilting job! I’ll pin the top down a bit so that there is minimal shifting in the basting process. A little extra time to get things right always pays off in the end and it’s what I do for all of my customer’s quilts.

Feather wreaths went into the large cranberry-colored areas and the center spine for them was drawn on the quilt. Another circle was drawn for the center where the feathers would all met, but not extend past. We were off with that! What is called “continuous curve” was used to put arcs in all the other areas of the body of the quilt.

Another perspective of the body of the quilt, with the borders shown as well… a large feather that meandered around the quilt. Loops were stitched in the dark brown border to add a cute touch.

The finished front, off the frame and “resting” You’d rest, too, if you had 130,000 holes in you! That’s a lot of stitches of glide thread covering this beautiful Christmas gift.

And a view from the back. This was such an honor to quilt and it was such fun to custom quilt once again. I just love the chances I get to leave my thumbprint on my customers hard work. Piecing a quilt takes an immense amount of time and fabric these days is not cheap. Averaging $12 a square yard or more, and with upwards of 8 yards needed for the front and another 5 yards for the back, you can see the expense of such a grand gift. I can easily say that this Mom is going to be so proud of her daughter for this gorgeous work and there will be a few happy tears shed on Christmas day for this mother and daughter!

I hope this Christmas season sees you happy, healthy, productive and joy-filled. May God touch each and every one of you with His love. Merry Christmas to you!

Share this:

Like this:

LikeLoading...

Author: threadworksfactory

I'm a licensed landscape architect who is married with three wonderful step-kids and a wonderful granddaughter. My husband and I share our passion of racing and have very hectic summers.
I made my first quilt over a decade ago and waited another 8 years to tackle my second. Doing so fostered a passion to completely "build" a quilt and my third quilt saw me realize my dream to design, construct and longarm a quilt. This was made for a very special person....my mom!
View all posts by threadworksfactory